


The Healing Dark

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Angst, Blood Drinking, Canon-Typical Violence, Chains, Confinement, Extra Treat, Hopeful Ending, Insanity, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-04-30
Packaged: 2018-06-05 09:47:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6699985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After taking blood from a drugged victim, Louis must be restrained for his own good by Armand, who knows the true reason for Louis's disastrous attempt to walk in the sun...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Healing Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shadow_lover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow_lover/gifts).



> Dear shadow_lover, I hope that you enjoy this last minute treat!
> 
> DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters and am making no money from this story. Suing is a waste of time and money.
> 
> Many thanks to my beta who wishes to remain anonymous.

The chains could only have been crafted to restrain a vampire rather than a mere mortal, judging from their strength, their weight and their obviously antique origin. Every time Louis had strained against them, enraged and frustrated, striving to break free of their confinement and escape into the outside world, they had held fast and he remained within the walls of his prison. It was a warm and comfortable place, and the healing dark provided an environment for his burned and blistered skin to be shielded from intruding light and begin the long process of recovery, but to Louis this room was still a prison all the same.

Each night his rescuer and jailer, Armand, would bring Louis victims and Louis would drain them and regain a slight modicum of his former strength. These victims were animals at first, and later humans, mostly tramps and beggars who would be easy to find wandering the streets late at night and who could be lured into danger without much effort due to their desperation for the very promise of food and shelter, or perhaps to their utter weariness with life and wish to lay down its irksome burdens for all time. Louis was grateful, however, to observe that none of them were very young – it was as if Armand was heeding the turbulent thoughts of his beloved, those heartfelt yet unspoken pleas to avoid leading any children to their deaths in this gloomy, windowless chamber where Louis could not even view the rising moon.

Armand was the most patient and loving of attendants during this time of tiresome captivity – besides bringing freshly caught prey to sate the other vampire’s appetite, he was very generous with his own ancient and potently restorative blood, allowing Louis to embrace and feed from him almost nightly. Despite the heaviness of the chains and his lack of freedom, Louis found a bliss and sweetness unrivalled by any other when Armand came close and offered his pale, slender throat to the eager fangs of his fellow vampire.

Louis would latch on roughly in the earliest days of his seclusion, biting harshly at the inviting flesh of Armand’s neck, half in clumsiness due to his weakened condition and half in anger at being imprisoned. But later, as he became stronger and more able to see reason, he would gently nuzzle at the delicate skin, sometimes trailing soft kisses from Armand’s jugular vein all the way to his lips and back again before seductively and slowly sinking his sharp teeth.

It was an almost sacred experience for Louis, to feed like this upon the one who loved him enough to try and keep him safe against his own will. Armand seemed to radiate an inner light in these most intense of moments, resembling an angel from a Renaissance painting, haloed in gold and with and expression of infinite compassion and tenderness on his perfectly beautiful face.

The two vampires seldom spoke aloud to each other; thought and touch alone served as communication in those first weeks of Louis’ entrapment, mostly because Armand sensed that Louis was in too much physical agony, as well as emotional turmoil, to use his voice. And when he was initially brought to the hidden chamber to recuperate, Louis’s mind was so full of confusion that only blood and darkness could penetrate the swirl of crazed meanderings in his head.

It was not until some months later – how many, exactly, it was impossible for Louis to calculate precisely – that he was able to have a rational conversation with Armand, and remember what had happened to cause his dreadful burns.

“Why did you feel the need to chain me?” Louis asked quietly on the day when Armand finally released him from his unyielding bonds of iron.

“Because you were raving mad, determined to walk in the sun. You kept claiming that the sunlight was calling to you,” Armand had replied, his eyes full of the worry that his calm tone strove to conceal. “That victim you took last when walking the streets – his blood must have been tainted by a drug. Just as wine in the vital fluids of a drunkard can intoxicate us, these new substances can drive a vampire to the point of insanity, and they are hard to detect, even to the oldest and most adept of us.”

Louis nodded, rubbing his wrists before pulling Armand closer and raising a loving hand to caress his silken hair. “I remember now,” he whispered, and placed cold yet gentle lips to the temple of his beloved. “There were voices in my head – and they told me that in the sunlight was where I could find him again. That if I could follow him into the heart of its white fire, I would see him, touch him, and bring him back to us.”

Armand shook his head, his gaze still filled with deep concern. “Madness indeed, a reckless act almost worthy of Lestat himself, my love,” he said, and took Louis’s hands in his own. “I must caution you – be careful when taking blood from those who seek revelry in the late hours of the night, and also do not seek him amongst them. He has his own reasons for leaving us for the time being. It is the typical pattern of predators such as he – to forge connections for a while, for a few years or even a few centuries – and then to move on, seeking new adventures and new ways to taste of life and death and love. He has gone for now, but I believe he will return some day. I knew him long before you did, and I have seen how he behaves.”

Louis embraced Armand fully now, kissing him deeply, and then nodded slowly. “You know that I love you devotedly, and that I would never abandon you, for him or any other – but I cannot help but long for him. My dreams, in my maddened state, were full of him – of his times with you and I. We were complete, the three of us, and I can tell that you miss him as I much as I do, although you never speak of him out loud.”

“He is an addiction in the blood – worse than any drug could ever be,” Armand admitted wryly, and wound his arms protectively around Louis, saying no more, yet communicating by his very closeness that he, too, ached for Lestat to return to them.


End file.
